


To Tell You the Why

by Jennytheshipper



Category: The Terror (TV 2018) RPF, The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: F/M, Fix-it fic that fics nothing, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Takes place at the end of We are Gone, why am i like this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-01-31 13:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21446665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennytheshipper/pseuds/Jennytheshipper
Summary: What did Francis say?He had heard James Clark Ross’s voice as clear as day, filled with love and concern. It struck him to the core, filled his eyes with tears. He retreated to his tent, where he composed himself. If he could get Ross alone, away from the interpreter, he just might be able to do it...
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier & Sir James Clark Ross, Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Sophia Cracroft/Captain Francis Crozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2019





	To Tell You the Why

_What did Francis say?_

He had heard James Clark Ross’s voice as clear as day, filled with love and concern. It struck him to the core, filled his eyes with tears. He retreated to his tent, where he composed himself. If he could get Ross alone, away from the interpreter, he just might be able to do it. He was not long in his tent before the boy arrived. Francis described Ross and the interpreter to him and said, “Bring Ross here. Take the other away to be fed by your mother. Tell her to give him seal meat.”

The boy ran off to fulfill his errand and Francis set about tidying the place for a visitor: He knelt and added fat to the oil lamp. It brightened and threw off more heat. It was already warm in the tent by Francis’s standards but James would not have acclimated yet. He took off his outer jacket and placed it in its spot near the fire. Using a scrap of mirror salvaged from the ships, he examined his bearded face, his tangled hair. He was quite wild looking. He ran a bone comb through his hair with his one, shaking hand, smoothing it as best he could. Then, he reached into a leather pouch and cut some fresh seal meat, arranging it on a pewter plate--another piece of salvage. 

The tent flap opened, letting in a gust of wind and a swirl of snow. The boy crept in first, followed by Ross saying, “What is this all about?” The boy giggled and disappeared into a corner, using Francis for cover.

“You look well, James,” Francis said. Ross peered in at him, squinting, eyes adjusting to the light, and then a look of shock, of recognition.

“Frank! My God. They said you were dead.” He crawled forward and stood. Francis struggled to his feet and pulled Ross into an embrace, wrapping his arms around him tightly. Ross’s body felt cold next to his and was either trembling or sobbing. “I’m here. It’s alright,” Francis whispered. Ross pulled back, looking embarrassed, red-eyed and Francis offered him a seat near the lamp. He was thinking of another James. One who wouldn’t have pulled back, wouldn’t have been embarrassed. Francis would have to relearn this James, and quickly. They didn’t have much time.

“I’m sorry about that mischief back there,” Francis said, mustering a smile. “I couldn’t let your man know I was alive. I’m not going back and I’d prefer if everyone thought I was dead.”

Ross shook his head confused. Francis, reached for the plate of meat, steadying himself on his stump.

“Good God, man, your hand. What happened?” Ross said, staring at Francis’s stump for a moment before looking quickly away.

“It’s a long story. But I’ve not brought you here to tell you that,” Francis said, handing Ross the plate and a knife. Ross took it with a grateful look. “Your man is being fed nearby. I wanted to take the opportunity to give you these.” Francis dragged an old canvas bag out of the corner and with effort, for the books were heavy, removed Erebus and Terror’s logs and a folder of papers which he’d titled “Franklin Overland Expedition.” 

“This will tell you the facts. It does not tell you why, though. We didn’t know it then.” Francis set the books down on the fur hide that James was sitting on. “You don’t have time to read it now. It’s mostly a record of death. It will have to suffice for a memoir. I’m tired of carrying them with me.”

“You can bring them home yourself,” Ross said between mouthfuls. He ate ravenously. His ship was frozen in. It had likely been months since his last meal of fresh meat.

“No, James. I can not. There are good reasons. And anyway, there’s nothing there for me now. I will be of no use there.”

“Is that your child?” James asked, nodding to the boy who had crawled out from behind Francis to observe Ross. 

“No,” Francis smiled. "He belongs to Meemo, the man you were just speaking to. I have no wife yet. I can’t support a family until my hunting improves. I’m a sort of poor relation at this point. But Franklin once said, when he thought I wasn’t listening, that I was made of hope.”

Ross smiled briefly, a tight smile that made the lines in his windburned cheeks look like they might break open like leads in August.

“You look good, Frank. This life suits you.”

“I’ve quit drinking. It’s clean living for me now. Mind you, there’s no other kind of living here.”

Ross laughed, a single guffaw that startled the boy who looked at Francis for guidance. Francis reached out his good hand to him and he crawled closer, tucking up against Francis's side.

“I thought you were a Norse god in that beard.”

“Funny sort of one-handed god,” Francis said, holding up his left arm briefly.

“It startled me is all. You can have a prosthetic made. They can do wonders now.”

“I’m having one made here of whalebone,” Francis said. He was studying Ross’s face. His friend looked older. There were a handful of gray hairs sprouting in his ginger beard. 

“Miss Cracroft might still accept you,” Ross said, in a teasing tone. An old warmth spread over Francis. They might have been in the Erebus wardroom five years earlier. “She is unmarried. She lives with her aunt and I hear she is devoted solely to the cause of finding you.”

“And when she learns of her uncle’s death, will she still want to marry me? She sent me to look after him.”

“I believe she will,” Ross said, even as his grin faded. “In time.”

“Oh James. That would not do at all. I might start drinking again. And I should surely make Miss Cracroft miserable then.”

“Well, then come and live with me. Ann would have you with us. She positively pines for you. She says you’re the only one that can keep me in line.”

“That is a kind offer. But as I said, the drinking. And more than that, there is a great secret here that no one must speak of in England. I am entrusting it to you, because you are discreet and responsible and will not let it slip.”

“What secret?” Ross asked. He sounded dismissive. 

“It is the ‘why’ of which I spoke earlier,” Francis said, gesturing to the books at Ross’s feet. “I believe my friend attempted to explain it to you, but your man had no way of understanding it.”

“The creature he spoke of. What was it called?”

“Tuunbaq. It’s what killed Franklin. Killed more than 50 of the men at least. I don’t have an exact count. My best estimates are in the book.”

“50 men? A single creature? It’s not possible.”

“It is part animal, part spirit. Invincible, or nearly so. It does have a body. It can die. I watched it die. I killed it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It looks like a bear for the most part, an uncommonly big bear,” he began. Ross was looking at him skeptically. Francis imagined himself telling this to a court martial. It sounded mad. It was one of the reasons he would never go back. Who would believe him? “But the head is more like that of an ape. It has an ape-like intelligence as well, capable of strategy and cruelty, which I do not think a bear could manage. And its hands are like those of an ape, with enormous bear claws on each finger. It cut two men clean in half, with no more difficulty than you are having with that meat.”

Ross stopped eating momentarily and examined the meat at the end of his knife. “It’s very good, by the way. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I am getting better at hunting seal. It was a small one, but very sweet, I thought. I’m glad you were here to share it.”

“If this tuunbaq is dead, then we can have its carcass stuffed and mounted,” Ross suggested cheerfully. “You could bring it back as a trophy for Lady Jane’s collection.”

“No! Damn it, man. You’re not listening. We absolutely can not do that. We have done enough damage here. You will leave. Tell them I am dead and that the passage is not of practical use. It’s too deep within the labyrinth. Every ship you send will be frozen in and lost.”

“The passage. You’ve found it then?”

“Of course I’ve found it! Do you think me a complete eegit? I’ve lived here for three years. I’ve sailed small boats and canoes on it half a dozen times. Next year, I plan to lead a whale hunt in your precious passage.”

“My precious passage? You’re the one who found it!”

“In point of fact it was Mr. Blanky who first found it. I was second, I believe. That seems to be my lot,” Francis said with a wry smile. He remembered the day they found Blanky’s wooden leg and the map. They buried the leg. Francis kept the map.

“Can you...can you draw it on a map for me?”

“Ay, of course. But I will not. It would be too great a temptation, James. I know you. You would go back to your ship and first thing when you have open water you’d use it to sail the passage rather than turning around and getting home to your wife and baby. Then what would Thot do to me?” Francis said, his tone light and joking.

“You don’t trust me?” Ross said petulantly. Francis resisted the urge to hand over the map. It was difficult to deny Ross anything he truly wanted.

“Not when it comes to the passage. It’s too great a siren. I’ve seen what men do when it’s within their grasp.”

“You talk as if you weren’t one of us.”

Ross sounded and looked utterly disappointed. Francis felt his heart lurch. It would be so easy to give him what he wanted. But no, he'd not send more men to their doom.

“I’m not anymore. My service is over, James. I’ve immigrated to North America like so many of my countrymen.”

Ross was quiet. He put the empty plate down on the rug.

“I am sorry, my boy," Francis said, trying out an old endearment. "But that is way of it. What’s happened to change me is in that book. The names of the dead, how and where they died, though I have left out much infamy. There is nothing to be gained with an account of the depravity that came after we left the ships. You know as well I do, the depths that desperate men will sink to." Ross nodded in understanding. A shiver, a memory perhaps passed through his body. "I am the only survivor. But you must tell them we are gone. All dead and gone." "No, Francis. I can't lie to the admiralty. I won't." Francis ignored this statement. Ross would not betray him. And he had at least bent the truth to the admiralty when it suited his purposes. They all had. "There is one matter, that I would have you understand, though the admiralty will read only Franklin's account, because that is what is in the log. I must give you my side as well. For you. I would have you know, at least. To begin with, it was lust for finding that damnable passage that got us frozen in. We hit a bergy bit. Erebus’s propeller was damaged. She could only make two knots. I suggested we combine ships, take the coal from both and make a run for safer waters, out of the pack as it was already mid-September.”

“A sensible plan.”

“I thought so. And we would have found the passage as well because I had a theory even then about where it was and it turned out I was right.”

“But Franklin wouldn’t listen to you.”

“Of course not. He was stubborn. Didn’t want to give up Erebus. Afraid of how it would look to the men. Like defeat or retreat. It was the same reason he refused to use the cylinders.”

“I’d wondered why we hadn’t found any.”

“Anything that smacked of preparation for rescue, anything that seemed like caution was utterly repugnant to him. Everything had to have the appearance of glory.”

“Damned foolish. And I think the admiralty would see it that way as well. My uncle railed against Franklin’s stubborn refusal to plan for the worst. He was dead against Franklin’s appointment.”

“But he wasn’t in favor of me either.”

“No. He was in favor of no one but John Ross. But we could go back, Frank," Ross said, his tone boyish and hopeful. Francis's heart ached. "You could tell your story. You would be rightly hailed as discovering the passage. Every other thing would be secondary to that. Every inquiry would necessarily end with your success.” 

“Which is precisely why I can’t go back. Our presence here, Erebus and Terror, upset some kind of balance. If I go back, more ships will come. It will happen again. All of those men who died, my men, James, I won’t have them die for nothing. For a worthless bit of waterway. Do you not see? If more ships come it will happen again. The creature would return,” Francis said. As he spoke he was aware that Ross was looking at him with pity. He stopped for a moment, took a breath and continued, more calmly. ”And then there is the question of the debt we owe to these people. They have taken me in as one of their own, though I killed the tuunbaq. They mourned him. He was part of them.”

“You’ve clearly been through an ordeal, Frank.” Ross said, in a tone of sympathy. “Stay here with your friends for now. Think about it. When leads open up, you can come home with me.”

“I plan to be a thousand miles away by the time leads open up. That’s the caribou season in the south. I’ll be there. I’ve promised the fellow who is making my hand a good set of antlers as payment. I’ll not let him down.”

Ross sighed and gave a wan smile to the boy. He stood. “I should be going. If I can’t change your mind, what will I say about these?” Ross said, bending to pick up the books.

“Say the Netsilik found them and gave them to you,” Francis said, and got slowly to his feet.

They stood at arms length observing one another quietly. Francis remembered a dance on the ice in the Antarctic, many years past, when he and James opened the ball with a waltz together. He’d been so in love with James Clark Ross, so completely in his spell that day, had he asked Francis to come live with him, under any conditions, no matter how mortifying, Francis would have gone. But not now. The other James had taught him to expect more. Still, he felt the old flutter in his stomach, the old pang of desire when they embraced, for the last time.

Francis could not hold back. He dipped Ross’s head forward with his good hand, pressing a kiss to his cool forehead. “Now go, dear boy, and don’t look back for me,” he whispered, still holding tight. Ross didn’t try to pull away this time. Perhaps he knew this was the last time they would see one another. “I’m glad you’ve come. You take those books. It’s a great weight from my mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> A huge, heart-felt thank you to Onstraysod for her help as a beta and as a repository of knowledge about dead arctic explorers.


End file.
